According to current communication system management systems and techniques, a network operator or other personnel manually selects and executes communication system tests to determine the root cause of service performance degradations or other observed conditions affecting a service which is running in the communication system.
This process tends to be time consuming and also requires a high level of skill, particular in larger scale or complex communication systems. For example, a communication service may rely on many underlying technologies, any of which might be responsible for an observed problem. In order to properly test such a service, an operator would be required to first investigate exactly how the service is configured, the technologies on which the service relies, and the appropriate tests for those technologies. Any tests would then have to be executed in the correct order. All of these operations are performed manually in conventional systems.
Thus, there remains a need for improved techniques for testing communication systems, for troubleshooting service level problems or monitoring services, for example.